Armistice A Bordeaux PDF

The Armistice of 22 June 1940 was signed at 18:36 near Compiègne, Armistice A Bordeaux PDF, by officials of Nazi Germany and the French Third Republic. French side were more junior, such as General Charles Huntziger. French had lost their best heavy weaponry and their best armored formations.

Between May and June, French forces were in general retreat and Germany threatened to occupy Paris. 27,000 dead, more than 111,000 wounded and 18,000 missing. French losses were 92,000 dead and more than 200,000 wounded. The British Expeditionary Force suffered 68,000 casualties, with around 10,000 killed. When Adolf Hitler received word from the French government that they wished to negotiate an armistice, Hitler selected Compiègne Forest as the site for the negotiations. William Shirer, who was present on that day, reports, « I am but fifty yards from him. I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life.

It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph. Fall Rot in June exploited and sealed the stunning German success of Fall Gelb in May. Adolf Hitler had a number of reasons for agreeing to an armistice. He wanted to ensure that France did not continue to fight from North Africa, and he wanted to ensure that the French Navy was taken out of the war. In addition, leaving a French government in place would relieve Germany of the considerable burden of administering French territory, particularly as he turned his attentions towards Britain. According to William Shirer’s book Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, French General Charles Huntziger complained that the armistice terms imposed on France were harsher than those imposed on Germany in 1918.

This was envisaged to last until a final peace treaty was negotiated. At the time, both French and Germans thought the occupation would be a provisional state of affairs and last only until Britain came to terms, which was believed to be imminent. However, a final peace treaty was never negotiated, and the unoccupied zone was occupied by Germany and its Italian ally in Operation Anton following the invasion of French North Africa by the Allies in November 1942. Keitel replied that they would have to accept or reject the armistice as it was. Given the military situation that France was in, Huntziger had « no choice » but to accede to the armistice terms. The armistice did have some relative advantages for the French, compared to worse possible outcomes, such as keeping the colonial empire and the fleet, and, by avoiding full occupation and disarmament, the remaining French rump state in the unoccupied zone could enforce a certain de facto independence and neutrality vis-à-vis the Axis.